HOW CONSISTENCY CAN HELP YOU ACHIEVE 100% OF YOUR GOALS

Arsene Wenger said, ‘When you look at people who are successful, you will find that they aren’t the people who are motivated, but have consistency in their motivation.’ Consistency is power, and it is what inspires success. Without consistency, every dream will die at birth stage. Those who climbed Mount Everest, didn’t do it without pains – they succeeded because despite the agony, consistency made them reach the summit. The industry bests didn’t attain their goals without the power of consistency. The great champions emerged and ruled in their chosen fields because they were consistent. You can’t achieve anything, you can’t become anything, you can’t reach any enviable height without consistency. I am not excited by your dream – I am excited by your consistency. I don’t respect your flamboyance – I respect your consistency. I am not impressed by your persuasive speech – I am impressed by your consistency. I don’t care how weak you are, I don’t give a damn how little gifted you are, inasmuch as you prove your consistency in achieving that goal. You may be slow, but if you’re consistent, you will arrive at your goal justified and fulfilled – that’s what I care about.

What is Consistency?

In answering this question, I am going to talk about some of the many factors that make up or define consistency.

1. Everyday Commitment: if you’re consistent, you’ll be committed everyday to what you do. Commitment means giving all your heart, mind and soul to your goal. The greatest definition of success is commitment – if you’re committed, there’s nothing you can’t achieve or become. Most people fail because they never added commitment to their objectives. Commitment is an undying and a never give up mentality, even when the conditions are so unfavourable. The mother of consistency is everyday commitment.

2. Undying Passion: consistency comes with undying passion. One major engine that drives consistency is when a person has the passion for a set goal. A soldier with the passion for his job keeps fighting even when he’s wounded. Yo-Yo Ma said, ‘Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you’re passionate about something, then you’re more willing to take risks.’ You will press the button everyday for a thousand years if your goal for which you’re passionate about resides inside a locked apartment.

3. Swiftness: consistent people do not procrastinate – they swing into action, and continually do so until they achieve their goals. They don’t delay, they don’t waste time, they just keep going because they have it in their will and minds to go. You need to be quick when the energy, drive and motivation is there to go. Any time you waste when the momentum to push is there takes you backward. To be consistent, you must urgently follow your swift in order to maintain the drive towards your perceived goal.

4. No-Excuse Mentality: consistency does not make excuses for not performing, or hitting its desired target. No matter how genuine an excuse may be, consistency does not accept it – it just carries on with a designed assignment and continuously go with it. Unlike most people, consistency does not justify even the most tangible reason to be below expectation. If you have the no-excuse attitude, you’ll be consistent with what you do, and achieve it on time or even before time. A no-excuse attitude makes you achieve so much.

5. Using Your Time Wisely: many people mismanage their time, and they think because it’s free, they’ll get it back. What a lie! You lie to yourself when you think you’ll get a wasted time back because it never happens. Therefore, you must learn to use your time wisely!

Consistency involves proper time management in order to achieve more or meet your set target. Jim Loehr said, ‘Boundary setting is really a huge part of time management.’ Let me be honest with you, if you don’t set boundaries, you can’t achieve much. People will encroach on your time and business – when they do, you won’t have the time and privacy to complete what you started. So, be wise with your time.

6. Team it: when I do audio podcasts, it’s easier for me to work alone. When I write articles, I experience the same ease as in doing audio podcasts, but when I shoot videos, I can’t do it alone, especially when I want something with good quality. To get anything to a top level of quality, you need to synergise with those who can do either what you can’t do, or do it better than you. If you want to keep doing it yourself, you can’t get a different result – the only result you’ll get will be on a downward trend. So, teaming it helps to be consistent because there’s a division of labour, and everyone will work in his level of specialisation.

7. Moving with a Pragmatic Speed: every task has an assigned time frame to get it done, and for each step, there is a stipulated period to meet the subset of goal. Time and task determine the speed required to attain a task, and moving with the required speed makes you consistently achieve your set target. You don’t need to go over the speed limit to be consistent – if you follow the required speed, you will still end up successful in your expected destination. So, be pragmatic in your speed – understand what the recommended speed is for a stipulated assignment, and go with it, and go for it.

8. Refusing to be Comfortable: when driving towards your perceived destination, refusing to be comfortable when you’re at the outskirt of your goal will make you achieve your purpose right on time. But if you feel because you’re near, there isn’t a need to maintain your initial speed, your ease might hamper the success you intended to achieve. Refusing to be comfortable as you forge towards your set target measures as consistency . Comfort weakens your resolve to succeed in your endeavour.

9. Trampling on Pains: when you’re happy, and when all loosed ends are properly tied, motivation is high, and when it is, you can climb any mountain and scale any height. But what determines consistency isn’t when everything is balanced, because it hardly is – when the going gets rough, when the disappointments keep pouring in, when failure becomes imminent, when your loving relationship gets sour, that is when consistency demands more sacrifices. If you can’t drive on when there’s obvious heat raging against you, your goals will hardly be achieved. You know why? Most of the roads we tread are bumpy – there are only a few smooth and straight paths on your journey. If you can’t thrive on dodgy roads, you can’t hit your target successfully. You must learn to run with your pains if you want to become something. Trample on your pains and move on!

10. Not Being Bored by Monotony: when chasing a dream, you may be fed up with taking same measure of steps continuously – taking those same steps may be the only action you need to take to make it happen. Doing the same thing everyday can be so boring even if you’re doing the right thing – it will take self discipline to continue in that line until you reach the end of the road.

What Inspires Consistency?

1. Inner Satisfaction: when something makes you happy, you’ll want to do it more often even if it demands sacrifice to do it. When something fills the vacuum in your heart, you’ll keep doing that thing in order to avoid emptiness. Inner satisfaction inspires your consistency to achieve a set goal. If you aren’t satisfied from the outcome of what you do, it will be challenging getting you to do it frequently and committedly.

2. Hope and Expectation: the valency of what you want to achieve is a driving force towards your set target. When the attractiveness is inviting, the tendency to do it becomes magnetic. Your expectation is an undying force pulling you to the place of purpose or intent. The pull helps inspire you to navigate and drive towards your expectation.

3. Meet a Need: if there is a need to meet, no one will tell you to run towards it if your life depends on it. If you see a lion coming your way, for instance, there is a need for safety, and I bet you’ll do everything to make it happen. Some goals are needs, and if we see them as such, we will be inspired to consistently make them happen.

4. Self Motivation: sometimes, to move, you don’t need external fuel – what you need is yourself. The best inspiration to reach your expectation must come from within you. Anything else is just an addition, and sometimes, that addition never come, so you have to wake up and run your race.

5. Feedback: if you are honestly given a positive feedback about your performance, it has a positive knock-on effect on your drive to complete your journey on time. And sometimes, if you are told how a sloth you are in reaching your desired destination, and you’re someone who doesn’t like to fail, the negative feedback will equally be a propeller towards your expectation. Feedbacks inspire you to hit your set target.

6. The Challenge: if people say you can’t, prove to yourself, and not them, that you can. I love challenges – many times, life has shown me uncountable impossibilities, but on all of those times, I have never stopped winning – I always prove to myself that I can. And if I can, you also can. Challenge yourself to prove your worth – your challenge is your inspiration.

7. Leaving a Legacy: when you remember that achieving a goal will make you leave a milestone on the road of life, you will be inspired to complete your goal. When I remember that in years to come, people will read my articles, read my books, listen to my audio podcasts, and watch my videos, and be lifted, I am inspired to carry on even when I am tired and fed up, or when I feel that I am making nothing out of what I am doing.

What Consistency isn’t

1. It isn’t wasting time on the ephemerals: if you think majoring on minors and minoring on majors is consistency, you lie. There’s a difference between mere activities and consistency – consistency, in its positive meaning is inclined to hard work and good use of time.

2. It isn’t repeatedly making the same mistakes: if you repeatedly do the same thing, and continuously make mistakes, you haven’t learnt anything. Repeating a class many times does not make you consistent – consistent people hardly fail, and even when they do, they don’t always fail.

3. It isn’t pretending to do something: you cheat yourself when you pretend to be doing something while doing nothing. When the result comes out, you’ll be shamed for your lies. Pretence is a thief.

4. It isn’t playing to the gallery: the only thing that makes you win a game is scoring points, not playing to the gallery or entertainment. Even if you juggle the ball like JJ Okocha, if you don’t score, you don’t win.

5. It isn’t eye service: some people pretend to work on their goals to please those that put them under watch, but when those people leave, they immediately stop. With this attitude, the only achievement they’ll get is illusion. Illusion means nothing but vague dream. Don’t leave a life called fake, be consistent with your dream to achieve your set goal!

About SuccessInks

Success Inks is a leadership motivation, strategy, innovation, and personal development blog. It was launched in 2013 to help inspire individuals, communities, and entire societies make good decisions and take actions towards meaningful developments. Success Inks is into articles, video and audio podcasts, and will soon go into print publications.

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